I am the falling leaf listening gently to the rustle of the wind in the leaves still attached to the tree. Some leaves refusing to go brown and fall, longing to be evergreen like the firs and pines. In the dim half-light I find myself stuck between the tree and the cold ground. The winds vibrates the thin fragile edges of leaves which remember what it once felt like to be green, they remember how the sun would turn their dark green skins into luminous membranes, they remember the cold morning dew slowly running down their dark brown stems. They smiled at the rain and felt alive as the rich muddied water flowed through their veins. But the seperation of autumn feels inevitable and the joy of being high up and green is quickly silenced when the first leaf is broken off by a gust of winter bringing wind. You feel the whole tree gasp and the looming seperation pains even the happiest leaf. And here in slow-motion I fall towards a dark brown forest floor, scattered with the disconnected and dying. The sun about to dissapear behind the world; its last rays of light turn me see through like a dark sepia for the surrounding forest. The stories told of firs and pines, whispers amongst the forest floor of feeling cold snow against your green skin. Oh to be one of those mythical pines and firs.

A day of heavy steps and driving heat filled the air with an urgency. It was a warmth that got inside and slowed down, but it made people rush to escape it. The sun slowly drifted past its zenith and allowed room for the cold moons gentle breath to disperse through the air. From behind the hills emerged white behemoths struggling to move their cold bodies beneath the suns violent gaze. Slowly their grey limbs sprung over the hills and struck the blue sky. The day eased into free fall and a gentle breeze cooled the sweat on children’s brows. Faces looked up at the relief in the sky and questioned rain from with in office blocks. School children hoped for cancelled sports practices, farmers appreciated the seasons benevolence and paddlers dreamt of rivers becoming violent. The few drops slid down car windows and flashed darkness on cement floors. And then a voice tumbled down the hills shaking the air. Sounds like crashing waves echoed down and promised a satisfying end to the day. And all at once the blessing fell out of the sky. Full raindrops plummeted with the vigour of tiny car crashes to the earth. The attack took the ground by surprise and its warm soil was unable to filter the water fast enough. Water flowed between the green summer grass running down hills and gathering in brown muddied puddles. The reaching trees swayed their limbs from side to side trying to protect their smooth bodies from the cold rain. The underside of their leaves flashed grey in an almost undignified manner. Chaos fell about them and their roots drank deeply from it. The afternoon dragged by in what was almost flood weather. People stayed dry in their cars that cut through the heavy rain. Five o’clock rush hours stops for nothing and the beautiful rain was flung off windshields by modern machines with no faculty to experience wetness. The wetness that soaks through your shirt and sticks to your back, it runs down your hair and drips onto your ears sending cold shivers down your spine. A cold wet that is thrilling and uncomfortable. It calls our childhood out of dark corners and we smile up at the sky and stick out our tongues and taste the cold falling from the sky.

There was an angry man who lived at the bottom of a mountain. His name was forgotten and he yelled it at all the trees that got in his way. The angry man woke up every morning and cursed the sun for waking him up. He started his day by throwing rocks into the river. He hated the ground for being so cold during those early hours of the morning. The angry man was always tired and that made him sick. He eventually became so sick that he started seeing everything tainted red because of his tired eyes. He rubbed his eyes hard and shouted because of this. All his rubbing and shouting just made everything redder. The angry man reacted like a well-bred bull to the redness,he charged down the objects in his sight and exerted all the strength he had apon them. One day the angry man wanted to make the river that flowed from the mountain stop. Due to his impaired sight the flowing river did not look like a river should look. It was instead a gushing redness. He started as he always did, by shouting at the flowing red river. He mustered up all his strength and yelled until he fell over. The river flowed on like a defiant animal. His yelling did however attract a local smogsor. The smogsor is like a bear but afraid of nothing not even the ravings of an angry lunatic. The angry man did not notice the smogsor. The angry man decided to try collapse a section of the river bank. So he started to jump up and down stamping his feet and pounding his fists on the earth. While he angry man jumped the smogsor approached. The smogsor has the ability to quieten its breathing when approaching potential prey, not that that was necessary with the racket that was filling the valley. The smogsor is by no means a high-speed hunter but their fur is colored like the brown of winter found on these mountains. The smogsor also lacks any definable scent and so most prey are caught unaware of its presence. The angry man began to see the river-bank fall away into the river below. The dry brown clouded the water and made the flowing redness that the angry man saw even darker. This pleased the angry man. Nothing pleased the angry man more than destruction. By now the smogsor was clumsily lumbering down the hill behind the angry man. If anyone had been able to see the eyes of the smogsor they would have seen pity and regret. Pity for this angry man, pity that he would die all alone in the mountains trying to fight with a river as old as time. The smogsor regretted that he had woken up and walked east that morning. East had lead him to this angry man. West may have lead him to a more enjoyable meal. But the smogsor had gone east and now he must kill and eat the angry man. By this point the angry man had managed to collapse 3/4s of the section of river bank he was jumping on. He had already eyed out another section of the bank which looked susceptible to collapse. However before he could rush off to destruction the smogsor grabbed the angry mans leg in his mouth. The angry man was thrown to the ground.

‘The Hills! The Hills are killing me!!’ the angry man screamed as the smogsor ate him. All that was left of the angry man was his rib-cage concealing his heart. The smogsor would not risk eating the heart of a creature so angry.

To further this discussion, what about repurposing your most timeless content? Think of a post you published in the past that might fit into this “evergreen” category. If published tomorrow, could it be as fresh and relevant as it was when you first posted it?